Medford (not Memphis) is home to rebirth of Eddie Floyd's soul

Legendary singer Eddie Floyd (left) with Boston record producer/guitarist Michael Dinallo.

Stax Records will forever be aligned with Memphis - where Otis Redding and Sam & Dave cut their most famous tracks - but now Boston has a slice of it. Stax legend Eddie Floyd, whose hit "Knock on Wood" has been covered by countless artists from the Rolling Stones to David Bowie, just recorded a new album on the revived Stax label. It was made in, of all places, Medford, where a team of Boston players brought classic soul music to life once again.

"I told these guys, 'I'm impressed.' They did their homework," says Floyd, whose new disc, "Eddie Loves You So," was released this week, featuring a stellar mix of previously unreleased songs and some he wrote for others but had never done himself. It's a stirring collection minted by Boston's newly named Tremolo Twins - Michael Dinallo and Ducky Carlisle - who work out of the latter's Ice Station Zebra studio in Medford.

Dinallo, a versatile guitarist, has played with a slew of Boston acts from the Radio Kings to the White Owls and Barrence Whitfield, while drummer Carlisle has worked with Susan Tedeschi, Buddy Guy, and Stan Martin. But the Floyd project is their biggest shot so far at national notice.

"This was just all about Eddie. We love him. And he was amazing in the studio," says Dinallo. "Here's a guy who has been doing this for 50-plus years, and his energy was so inspiring. He was like a kid cutting his first record."

"Eddie is 73, but he's a pretty young 73," says Carlisle. "He's still gigging 200 nights a year."

Floyd performs internationally with the Blues Brothers and with ex-Stones bassist Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings. But he was persuaded to cut the new record in the Boston area (which he hasn't played since opening the House of Blues in Cambridge in 1992) by the sheer persistence of the Tremolo Twins.

"I would have flown to Timbuktu to make this happen," Dinallo says of the new album that finds Floyd purring through such gems as "I Will Always Have Faith in You" (a hit he wrote for Carla Thomas), the quietly urgent " 'Til My Back Ain't Got No Bone" (a hit for both William Bell and Esther Phillips), and the driving "You Don't Know What You Mean to Me," which Sam & Dave scored with. (There's no remake of Floyd's "Knock on Wood" because the producers felt they couldn't possibly top the original.)

So how do a couple of local guys get to record a soul legend in Medford? The seed was planted when Dinallo, who first met Floyd when he sat in as a surprise guest with the Radio Kings in Memphis, spent a day with him in London between gigs two years ago. Dinallo broached the recording topic over a glass of wine in a hotel lobby.

"I said, 'The first song I want to record, and I don't know if you're going to remember this, because you wrote it about 50 years ago, is "Since You Been Gone," ' " Dinallo recalls. "He looked at me, stunned, and said, 'How did you hear about that one?' " Floyd had only made an obscure demo of it, so he was shocked that Dinallo knew it. "That was the moment that cemented the whole project. It just took off from there. He let us run with it."

Reached at his home in Montgomery, Ala., Floyd admits, "I had a good feeling. I let them choose absolutely every song on there. I didn't choose a thing."

Dinallo sifted through 200 Floyd tunes and boiled them down to 10. He and Carlisle laid down basic rhythm tracks and Floyd made two trips to Medford to sing the vocals, doing just two takes for each song because that's all he had done at the original Stax Records, too. The album was completed with guest shots from "all the local heroes" in Boston, Dinallo says, citing Tim Gearan, Brother Cleve, Brian Templeton (of the Radio Kings), Steve Sadler, and saxophonists Paul Ahlstrand and Scott Aruda, playfully dubbed the "Medford Horns" instead of the Memphis Horns.

But the focus was always on Floyd's signature vocals. "We were just floored by the intensity and feeling of his singing," says Dinallo. Regarding his intimate baritone voice, Floyd says, "I don't practice anything. I basically think it. I go over and over it in my mind. That's my way of practicing it. That's the natural way for me. I go through the whole song in my head."

Carlisle remembers a funny conversation with John Burk, vice president of California-based Concord Records, which is now distributing the Stax label. "He said, 'You made the record in Nashville, right?' Ah, no, we made it in my home studio in Medford. His jaw dropped. But once they heard it, they liked it."

"I don't remember my jaw dropping," Burk says with a laugh from his Los Angeles office. "Well, maybe it did a little bit. I just thought they were going to make the record down south. I was surprised they were from Boston, but they seemed to have it under control. They clearly appreciate Eddie."

"I can't wait to do another one," says Dinallo.

Steve Morse can be reached at spmorse@gmail.com.